Sands of Destruction - Old school JRPG

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Hello everyone! How is it going? Did you try already Dark Awaken, the versus game set in a world of sword and sorcery of which I spoke in the last entry? Previously I talked about Nostalgia, a classic style JRPG for the Nintendo DS, and in this new entry I´m going to talk about another of those “lost JRPG games” hidden among the extensive catalogue of Nintendo´s massively successful double screen portable console. The game is called Sands of Destruction.

One of the bosses of the game.

As I was saying, Sands of Destruction is a classic JRPG published by Sega exclusively for the Nintendo DS and developed by the recently deceased Imageepoch Inc., a small developing studio that was located in Tokyo and that had several veterans of the Japanese game industry among its ranks, some of which participated in the development of classics of the game industry such as Xenogears or Grandia among others. Sands of Destruction takes us to a fantasy world in which humans have been enslaved by a superior race of half man, half beast humanoid beings know as Ferals. Due to the harsh conditions in which the humans are forced to live, a group of human rebels known as the World Annihilation Front has decided that they would much rather destroy the world and try to rebuild it again from its ashes, than living one more single day in the nightmare that human live has become. We will play the role of Kyrie, a humble countryside young lad with a hidden power that would allow him to destroy the world, although this is something he completely ignores. When the Ferals discover this, they decide to finish off Kyrie, but the rebels from the World Annihilation Front help him to run away, as they want to use his power for their goals, and which will lead Kyrie to travel around the whole world. Sincerely, I think the idea of playing for once with a character that is actually a danger for the whole world rather than it´s savior is quite original for the genre, the problem is it won´t be long before our character gets affected by the typical I´m-going-to-save-the-world-from-the-bad-guys syndrome, which is indeed such a pity since I think the scenario was ideal to offer something different to what we have seen in (almost) all the JRPG. Oh well, next time maybe... Although that doesn´t mean the story itself is bad, in fact, it does a good job in carrying on with the adventure, in which Kyrie won´t be alone. Several other characters will join him for several reasons. The six main characters of the game will be:

Kyrie Illunis

Kyrie is the young protagonist of the story. Extremely skillful with knifes, he´s passionate about cooking, and possesses a power that would allow him to destroy the whole world, which is the reason why he´s been chased by the Ferals. He is rescued by Morte, a member of the World Annihilation Front, and with whom Kyrie will gradually fall in love, being this one of the main reasons for him to join her and her group.


 

 Morte Asherah 

Morte is the female protagonist of the adventure and a member of the World Annihilation Front. Due to hear troubled pass, she has developed a cold and distant personality. Her favorite weapon is the sword. She rescues Kyrie with the intention of using him for her plans of destroying the world. Despite her cold personality, she has feelings for Kyrie, and although she tries to hide it, it eventually makes her rethink her goals.





 

Taupy Toplan

Taupy is a One Piece´s Chopper wannabe teddy bear bounty hunter that hunts down Ferals despite the fact that he himself is one of them. He hates to be called teddy bear, as according to him the right term would be “dwarf bear” (dunno which is worst...). He´s as kind of mentor of Kyrie, to whom he decides to join due to his enigmatic personality, and which brings me to the question: Is it really worthy to save a world in which your mentor is a f****** ted... dwarf bear?

Rhi´a Dragunal 

Rhi is a Feral that is more than 300 years old despite looking much younger (she would make a Fortune in Hollywood with her secret). When she gets mad she displays certain dragon traits, such as a tail, wings and horns (although she compensates it with her cute gothic lolita outfit). Since she is the last one left from her race, she decides to join Kyrie and his party in their mission to destroy the world as she thinks that, just like the dragons were there at the beginning of everything, so they should be at the end. Her favorite weapons are guns. What happened to spitting fire you say? Well, I guess that´s too old school... She has the skill of seeing the future, but the traditions of the dragons forbid her to use her visions to change the course of history (yeah right, I´m sure if because of that...). Despite her menacing appearance, she has a friendly and clam personality, although that doesn´t avoid that she wants to blow the sh*t up of the whole world...

Naja Gref

Naja is a half human, half Feral. As a result he displays both human and wolf traits. Despite his savage looks, he´s actually an intellectual obsessed with being always right even when it´s obvious that he´s not. Due to his half human condition, Naja has been the target of many prejudices from the Feral, although he has always being proud of his human mother (Spok detected!).

Agan Mardrus

Agan is a childhood friend of Morte, and son of the chief of the Sand Tribe, which makes him the future leader of the tribe. His favorite weapon is the whip. He used to belong to the Golden Lions, a group of human rebels that fight against the Ferals, although he left the group after he got betrayed by one of his own. He decided to join the Golden Lions after a childhood Feral friend of his treated with cruelty when the met again in their adulthood.

Ok, so now that we know who is who, we will move onto the title´s actual gameplay. As it happened in Nostalgia and many other JRPG games, Sands of Destruction makes use of the typical town-dungeon structure that will repeat all over the adventure, but this time we won´t travel along the world. Instead of that, we will use a world map to select our destination and go there directly. In the villages/towns we will be able to perform the typical actions of sleeping in the inn to recover ourselves, buy weapons and items, and talking to the local folks to gather (useless) information. Once we are ready, it will be time to head to one of the many dungeons of the game, all of them filled with treasures for us to find, and monsters and bosses we will have to defeat in order to be able to keep progressing through the adventure. Unfortunately for many, and luckily for many others, being the good classic JRPG game that is it, Sands of Destruction makes use of the... yup, you guess right, the (in)famous random battle system, which means that, just a blind mole, our character won´t have to option to see and avoid the enemies inside the dungeons even if these were to be just 5 inches away from their noses, thus we have that as we explore the dungeons, every few steps we will be taken to the combat screen where the combats will take place. But there are some good news for the random battle haters, as the developing team tried to make the system as dynamic as possible (inside it´s obvious limitations), so don´t give up all hope... at least not yet. Sands of Destruction makes use of a turn base system in which the characters will fight in order, being the characters with the highest agility attribute the first ones to take action. The combat screen itself will be divided in two screens, with the touch screen displaying the ground enemies, and the upper screen displaying the flying enemies. One of the features that help Sands of Destruction´s battle system distinguish itself from other JRPG games out there is the Battle Points system. Each character will have available a certain amount of Battle Points each turn, and each of the actions they will be able to perform will require of a different amount of Battle Points. The more powerful an attack is, the more points it will cost, and vice versa. When the Battle Points of a character reach cero, the character won´t be able to perform any more actions till the next turn. In each turn the characters will be able to use weak attacks that they will be able to chain to perform combos, strong attacks, use items and special attack/spells, or flee. Each time we perform a critical attack or 10+ combo hit, we will be granted extra Battle Points that will allow us to perform more actions in our turn. The be sincere, I think the combat system is pretty original and dynamic, making the combats fun and thrilling for such a limited system like the turn system, although, as I will soon explain, the system does have its mistakes.

Once we defeat our enemies, on top of receiving the typical rewards such as gold, items or experience, which will allow us to level up, we will also receive Customization Points, which we will be able to use to improve the special attacks of our characters as well as unlocking new ones, although the developing team has tried to go one step further with this, adding also a “compensation system”. When we decide to improve a special attack, we will be able to decide whether we improve the damage it inflicts, or the accuracy. If we improve the damage inflicted, the accuracy will decrease, and so we will have more chances to miss, and vice versa. This system definitely helps to add to the deepness of the game. Unfortunately, although all this in theory sounds great, the system doesn´t seem to be as well implemented as it should, allowing the players to exploit certain aspects too much, making the game a little bit too easy, and as a result we have that half way through the adventure, depending on the how much grinding we did (and actually even without much grinding), we might find ourselves able to beat most enemies and bosses without much of an effort. This definitely takes some of the fun away and can even ruin the whole thing for some players due to the lack of an actual challenge, spoiling what otherwise could have been a great combat and customization system. On top of all this, Sands of Destruction includes also a sort of “battle cry system”, which will allow us to “equip” our characters with different phrases that they will learn, and that they will be able to use during the combats (after fulfilling certain requirements) in order to obtain advantages for our group of heroes. Although this option is pretty secondary and you will perfectly able to get by without using it, is still one more option, and a pretty original one I must say.

Last, but least, we have the graphics of the game, which are good... and that´s it. The 3D stages are overall well designed, although it is possible to see some “shaky pixels” when we rotate the camera, on top of being a bit empty sometimes. The 2D sprites of the characters and enemies are really well done, with a special mention to the combat animations, although overall the title is behind the level of excellence seen in other titles of the platform. The game includes also some short anime scenes that narrate the most important highlights of the story. Is a pity that they didn´t include more of these scenes, although perhaps is normal thinking on the format and the platform of the game.


As a curiosity, I think is also worth to mention that, as it also happened in the past with other popular JRPG games such Blue Dragon or Arc the Lad, Sands of Destruction also has its own anime series which carries the same title as the game, and that was released as part of the promotion of the game. The series narrates us the happenings that take place in the game from another point of view during the 13 episodes of the series. Although we might not be talking about the next Dragon Ball, it could definitely still worth to check for those who like the story of the game or just fantasy anime series. Unfortunately, the anime has never been edited outside Japan, although is relatively easy to find it subtitled on the internet.

Kyrie and Morte in the anime version.

Bottom line, if you like classic style JRPG games, you should definitely give a chance to Sands of Destruction, as the game has all the elements that once made this genre one of the most relevant in the game industry for almost two decades, and that will surely please the fans of the genre, on top of adding a few new tweaks to some aspects as the turn based combats. The game was edited only in Japan and the US, and the US release was rather limited, which means the game could be a bit pricy for this kind of title nowadays, although I´m sure the fans of the genre will find it a well worthy investment. Enjoy!


GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ign-Xn_73u8

Hello! My name is Taupy! And no, I´m not a One Piece Chopper wannabe, or a teddy bear, I´m the greatest bounty hunter in the world!